Jumping on the Bandwagon: Clones in the Shadows
by Smoochynose
Summary: Naruto's been banished. Fortunately his friends don't approve of this movement.


Another Jumping on the Bandwagon story. Much sadder because it's from Naruto's viewpoint.**

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-=- Jumping on the Bandwagon: Clones in the Shadows -=-

Banished. Exiled. In the end it all came down to the same thing. He was homeless. Konoha was his home, always had been and he had thought it would always be. Sometimes he wondered if the council knew how cruel they could be.

All he ever wanted was to protect his village and in return be acknowledged for that protection. He didn't even ask for acceptance. He would have liked it. Of course he would have liked it. He didn't need it though. What he needed was somebody to say that they know he's there and if something happened, he wouldn't just disappear without anybody realising.

Banishment meant leaving. Exile meant being forgotten. Being homeless meant that there wasn't going to be anyone there to acknowledge him.

'It's not so bad,' he thought. He'd lived like that before. He survived like that for twelve years. He could do it again. It was a lie though and he knew it. It'd been unbearable before and he didn't know what it was like to be with people who not only acknowledged but liked and accepted him. Four years had made him soft. He wasn't protected from the bitter loneliness like he had been. He wouldn't survive that way anymore. It'd break and cripple him.

Carefully, Naruto packed his meagre belongings away. Gama-chan, his nightcap, his Team 7 picture. He stopped at the last one, wondering what Sasuke would think if he saw him now. It wasn't so hard, the Sasuke he knew, the one he was fighting to bring back, would call him 'Dobe' before doing everything he could to prevent it from happening, hoping nobody would find out what he was doing.

Naruto's heart pained as he remembered hat Promise of a Lifetime to bring Sasuke back. He would never back out of that promise, never give up but, his hands began to shake, could he bring Sasuke back if he wasn't allowed near the village? Would he ever see Sasuke again if he did bring him back? He was never going to see Sakura-chan or Kakashi or anyone again so why should it matter?

Naruto clasped one shaking hand with the other and pulled it to his chest, silently begging the tremors to stop. He couldn't let his friends see him like this. They had been angry, sad, and every emotion under the sun enough without seeing how much this was effecting him. He didn't want this to hurt them as much as it was hurting him.

He zipped the suitcase up and, relaxing his body slightly, pulled up his smiling mask. Sakura would know it wasn't genuine, actually everyone would, but Sakura was the only one who'd actually be able to see through the mask and see how much this pained him. She'd hate him for it, she always did when he wore his mask, but he didn't want to give the Council the pleasure of seeing how much they hurt him.

At exactly nine in the morning there was a knock on his apartment door. Opening the door he was faced with the unwelcome sight of Homura and Koharu, along with Anbu guard. His escort. Out of the village. Away from everything he cared from. His grip on his suitcase tightened. "I'm ready."

That was a lie too. He'd never be ready. Konoha was everything to him. He'd actually gone out the night before when informed of his impending banishment/exile/homelessness and filled a small sandwich bag with the soil of Team 7's training field. It was stupid and pointless and would probably one day get all his belongings covered in dirt but he was tired, he had just been told he'd never set foot in his home again, and he was feeling good damn sentimental enough and out of sorts that taking a piece of Konoha with him would calm him down a little.

It was cold. Actually it was a pretty decent day, he just felt cold. He barely took in what the elders were saying to him. They had said it all before. He looked around the half empty streets, only a few people out for such a time of day, and felt a hollow pit in his stomach. Where was Sakura-chan? Where was Kakashi? Where were his team-mates that promised him that they'd be here? This was his last chance to see them and they weren't there.

The trembling in his hands from earlier returned as he arrived at the gates. His friends still weren't there. He turned to face Konoha for the last time. The tears escaped his eyes before he could do anything, running down the sides of his face. Naruto swallowed the lump in his throat, disturbing the moisture that had gather just on the underside of his chin.

He watched the drop fall to the ground, breaking on impact. More drops followed until there was a constant stream of tears. Broken on impact - that was him and the impact was just setting in.

Naruto wasn't sure when he had fallen to his knees. He wasn't sure the trembling had become full blown shaking. He wasn't aware of much outside of the crippling pain he felt.

Alone.

Deserted.

Abandoned.

_Pleasesomebodyfindme._

He vanished in a cloud of smoke.

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The moment that Naruto disappeared in a cloud of smoke, a second Naruto appeared in his place. The council bristled and the Anbu guards tensed. They had already been wary because of the sheer emptiness of the streets.

"What is the meaning of this, Uzumaki?" Koharu demanded.

The new Naruto grinned. "That's the thing, me and the others were talking and …"

A third Naruto walked into the street from an ally, "We decided that we didn't want Naruto to be banished."

"We really like having him (Or is it me?) around," another Naruto commented, as hundreds of Narutos began pouring into the streets from where they were hidden out of sight.

"This means," a Naruto with a big grin on his face, "that if you banish one of us you run the risk of banishing somebody who isn't Naruto."

"Of course," a cocky looking Naruto said, "you can always keep banishing us until you have no ninjas left in the village."

"We will not give up, believe it!"

"Of course, it will be troublesome but …"

"We are ninja of the leaf. Our will of fire burns with youthful flames."

"Naruto-sensei."

"Naruto-kun."

"Naruto-sensei."

"Naruto-kun."

One Naruto at their said gave the pair a scathing look while a second, rather miffed looking blonde, looked at the council. "What these Narutos are trying to say is that will won't let you banish one of our own."

"Yeh you can't take me, believe it."

"Really, it's obvious they know that you're not the real me."

"Please, neither of you are the real Uzumaki Naruto."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. Neither you even have a chance of becoming Hokage."

"As if you would be Hokage. As the real Naruto I'm going to be Hokage."

Soon the street descended into a chaos of blondes in orange all proclaiming that they were the real Uzumaki Naruto. It would only take fifteen more minutes until the council decided it would simply be easier to withdraw the banishment.

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A warm hand slid over his cold, shaking hand, while at the same time an arm wrapped itself round his back and pulled him closer to the owner of both.

Blue eyes blinked widely, taking in the small side alley he was now in instead of the main street. He could slightly make out hoards of his mirror image just around the corner. When had he summoned shadow clones? They were saying something that he couldn't quite make out.

Confusion swirled around his mind. Reality was slipping. The warm hand pulled him back. He wasn't alone. He could feel her heart beating in her chest against his back. It was a gentle steady rhythm and eventually his own heart slowed into the same steady beat. Eventually he stopped gasping for air as he cried, briefly wondering when he had got in such a state, and the tears slowed, still lingering.

The girl eased him up slightly, pausing to look down on him, concerned, green eyes peaking out from under pink strands of hair. "You okay?"

He was confused, slightly out of sorts, and wondering what was going on. But … he hadn't been abandoned after all. He never really had reason to doubt he would be. "Yeah, I'm good."

The smile he received in return was enough to tell him that he gave the right answer.


End file.
